Obama signs debt-limit bill into law

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

The Senate passed a landmark plan to raise the federal debt limit and reduce government spending Tuesday, ending a partisan stalemate that threatened to plunge the nation into default and destabilize the world economy.

The measure was approved by a vote of 74 to 26. It promptly went to President Obama, who signed it into law, giving the government the money to pay its bills ahead of a midnight deadline.

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden after the Senate vote, Obama called the legislation “an important first step” in ensuring that the nation lives within its means, and he said it avoids “cutting too abruptly while the economy is still fragile.” He vowed to keep working for a “balanced approach” to deficit reduction that includes “reforming our tax code so that the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations pay their fair share.”

The Senate vote came a day after the House voted 269 to 161 to pass the plan, as recalcitrant Republicans and disappointed Democrats rallied around calls to avert the nation’s first default and rein in ballooning deficits. The measure immediately grants the Treasury $400 billion in additional borrowing authority, with more to follow.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-passes-debt-limit-bill/2011/08/02/gIQAIp2kpI_singlePage.html

[mikelgb]

1. Damn, I was really keeping my hopes up for a veto.

[Ter]

7. They had the votes to over-ride anyway

:(

[primavera]

21. From the founder of the doctrine of preemptive capitulation?

You're joking, right?

[MineralMan]

2. And now, moving on to the next thing...

This one's in the books.

[Marcel]

4. ?

:shrug:

[sasha031]

3. there is a pic of it on twitter

when I clicked the link, I felt like crying.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

5. Yes, another gift to the Republican Party is in the books.

[MessiahRp]

9. Can't wait for it to show up on that bullshit list of accomplishments that keeps getting floated

by the usual suspects!

[sofa king]

11. Really. Would you care to elaborate?

Let's see, the White House proposed in March to cut $4 trillion from federal spending over 12 years. Republicans ridiculed the plan.

This plan cuts $1 trillion in discretionary spending over 10 years.

The President's plan contained a number of "trigger mechanisms" that automatically made cuts if Congress and the White House did not have the moral courage to make the decisions.

So does this plan.

The President proposed in March cutting $400 billion in defense spending.

This plan creates a Congressional committee to find $1.2 trillion in additional cuts, which they will fail to do.

When they fail, and they will, this plan automatically cuts $500 billion in defense spending (and also automatically neutralizes opposition from the President's own Secretary of Defense).

The President promised in March that Medicare recipients would be minimally harmed.

This plan (once the cut-committee spins out) cuts two percent across the board for Medicare providers, which is as close to minimally harmed as they are likely to get.

The President promised that revoking the tax cut expiration date (set to expire in January, 2013, just after the election and completely out of reach of the Republicans to change, though they tried) was not an option. It appears that behind closed doors, this is the ONE THING the Republicans really wanted--to be released from the electoral whoopping they're going to take over holding your tax cuts hostage to make rich people richer.

Revoking the tax cut expiration is not in this plan.

So in other words, the President managed to get Congress to pass his own plan, a plan that makes tough choices, and tidily shifted the blame for it and the rest of this juvenile crisis squarely onto the backs of the GOP. When he didn't get all of his plan up front, he snookered them into "forming a committee" to figure out how to make additional cuts (which we need), and then tied the remaining details of his own proposal to Congress' certain failure, so that when they screw up and punt, the President wins. Again.

Furthermore, all the American people have to do to make almost all of this irrelevant is to reelect President Obama. That's the only way the tax cuts for the rich are going to expire (as agreed in the last "compromise" President Obama negotiated in the woodshed while none of you were looking), and the only way Congress will find the revenue to make the cuts it has pretended to commit to making.

So now the choice is pretty goddamned clear, ain't it? The vast majority of Americans now have hundreds of very personal, monetary reasons to vote for President Obama and against the GOP, because the tax breaks, handouts, and services that all of you enjoy will only remain in place if additional revenue can be generated by taxing the wealthy at the prior rate.

What a wonderful "gift" to the Republican Party, all right. A parting gift.

[X_Digger]

15. +1 n/t

[fascisthunter]

6. congrats on Screwing Americans more

[ixion]

10. exactly

:grr:

This song came to mind:

"...hope you, got your things together. Hope you, are quite prepared to die. Looks like, we're in for nasty weather. There's a Bad Moon on the rise." -- Creedence Clearwater Revival

[a simple pattern]

8. Heckuvajob.

[onehandle]

12. Rec for total capitulation.

Bill! Come back!

[OhioChick]

13. He just tied his name to "Austerity." n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

14. We Were Conned

[bemildred]

16. "Thank God It Passed!"

And on we go to the next dog and pony show.

[ClarkUSA]

17. Next Outrage Meme?

[unkachuck]

18. an all cut, no tax puke win, a 'balanced approach'

.....pukes control 1/2 of 1/3 of our government and still the Democrats lose....what are we electing?

[ClarkUSA]

19. Most cuts will be to defense and none to SS/Medicare benefits.

[fasttense]

22. That is not an accurate reading of the deal.

The deal creates a super Congress that can cut everything and anything except they can't increase taxes on our idle rich.

No longer does the committee have to have unanimous agreement on the plan like in the cat food commission. No, a simple majority is all is needed. You can bet the 6 RepubliCONS wont betray their lunatic fringe. But can you count on a Democrat appointed by Reid?

The super Congress needs only 7 votes out of 12 to do away with Social Security and Medicare as we know it.

You know they are going to destroy our paid for safety net. You know they are going to make the working class suffer even more while the idle rich sit in the lap of luxury. You know it's coming.

Fight back. They don't own you. They can only rule you if you let them. We outnumber them by millions. Join the march in DC in October. Bring sleeping bags and tents. We are staying there until we get results.

http://october2011.org/welcome

[Doctor_J]

20. The incredible shrinking president

Next up in line for cave-in are extension of UI and trade status for NK. I wonder if Obama will pretend to protest what the teabaggers want this time, or just wait until they submit their demands and sign off on all of them, thereby avoiding all the drama of this last charade.